Chapter XXIII.—The Relative Positions of the Pleroma. The Region of Achamoth, and the Creation of the Demiurge. The Addition of Fire to the Various Elements and Bodies of Nature.

Their most eminent powers, moreover, they confine within the following limits, as in a citadel. In the most elevated of all summits presides the tricenary Pleroma,226    Above, in chap. viii., he has mentioned the Pleroma as “the fulness of the thirtyfold divinity.” Horos marking off its boundary line.  Beneath it, Achamoth occupies the intermediate space for her abode,227    Metatur. treading down her son. For under her comes the Demiurge in his own Hebdomad, or rather the Devil, sojourning in this world in common with ourselves, formed, as has been said above, of the same elements and the same body, out of the most profitable calamities of Sophia; inasmuch as, (if it had not been for these,) our spirit would have had no space for inhaling and ejecting228    Reciprocandi. air—that delicate vest of all corporeal creatures, that revealer of all colours, that instrument of the seasons—if the sadness of Sophia had not filtered it, just as her fear did the animal existence, and her conversion the Demiurge himself. Into all these elements and bodies fire was fanned.  Now, since they have not as yet explained to us the original sensation of this229    Fire. in Sophia, I will on my own responsibility230    Ego. conjecture that its spark was struck out of the delicate emotions231    Motiunculis. of her (feverish grief). For you may be quite sure that, amidst all her vexations, she must have had a good deal of fever.232    Febricitasse.

CAPUT XXIII.

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Singularium autem potestatum arces his finibus collocant. In summis summitatibus praesidet tricenarius Pleroma, Horo signante lineam extremam. Inferius illum metatur medietatem Achamoth, filium calcans: subest enim demiurgus in hebdomade sua, magis diabolus, in isto nobiscum communi mundo coelementato et concorporificato, ut supra editum est, ex Sophiae utilissimis casibus, qua nec aerem haberet reciprocandi spiritus spatium, teneram omnium corporum vestem, colorum omnium indicem , organum temporum, si non et istum Sophiae moestitia colasset; sicut animalia metus, sicut conversio ejus, ipsum demiurgum. His omnibus elementis atque corporibus ignis inflabellatus est: cujus 0577B originalem Sophiae passionem, quia nondum ediderunt, ego interim argumentabor motiunculis ejus excussum. Credas enim illam in tantis vexationibus etiam fabricitasse .